When you gave it me under the pines,
I dreamed these gems from the mines
  Of Siberia, Ceylon, and Maine
Would glimmer as thoughts in the lines;

That this iron link from the chain
Of Bonnivard might retain
  Some verse of the Poet who sang
Of the prisoner and his pain;

That this wood from the frigate’s mast
Might write me a rhyme at last,
  As it used to write on the sky
The song of the sea and the blast.

But motionless as I wait,
Like a Bishop lying in state
  Lies the Pen, with its mitre of gold,
And its jewels inviolate.

Then must I speak, and say
That the light of that summer day
  In the garden under the pines
Shall not fade and pass away.

I shall see you standing there,
Caressed by the fragrant air,
  With the shadow on your face,
And the sunshine on your hair.

I shall hear the sweet low tone
Of a voice before unknown,
  Saying, “This is from me to you—­
From me, and to you alone.”

And in words not idle and vain
I shall answer and thank you again
  For the gift, and the grace of the gift,
O beautiful Helen of Maine!

And forever this gift will be
As a blessing from you to me,
  As a drop of the dew of your youth
On the leaves of an aged tree.

ROBERT BURNS

I see amid the fields of Ayr
A ploughman, who, in foul and fair,
      Sings at his task
So clear, we know not if it is
The laverock’s song we hear, or his,
      Nor care to ask.

For him the ploughing of those fields
A more ethereal harvest yields
      Than sheaves of grain;
Songs flush with Purple bloom the rye,
The plover’s call, the curlew’s cry,
      Sing in his brain.

Touched by his hand, the wayside weed
Becomes a flower; the lowliest reed
      Beside the stream
Is clothed with beauty; gorse and grass
And heather, where his footsteps pass,
      The brighter seem.

He sings of love, whose flame illumes
The darkness of lone cottage rooms;
      He feels the force,
The treacherous undertow and stress
Of wayward passions, and no less
      The keen remorse.

At moments, wrestling with his fate,
His voice is harsh, but not with hate;
      The brushwood, hung
Above the tavern door, lets fall
Its bitter leaf, its drop of gall
      Upon his tongue.

But still the music of his song
Rises o’er all elate and strong;
      Its master-chords
Are Manhood, Freedom, Brotherhood,
Its discords but an interlude
      Between the words.

And then to die so young and leave
Unfinished what he might achieve! 
      Yet better sure
Is this, than wandering up and down
An old man in a country town,
      Infirm and poor.